Emergency cook stoves

Well-Known Member

Have been trying to find a good backup/emergency cooking device, mainly for home use or camping. Something that does not require gas/propane, and is fuel efficient. It isn't for backpacking (have my Optimus and MSR for that), so the ability to handle a decent size pot is more important than light weight and small size. There are several types/brands out there, but it looks to me like this one will do the job perfectly. Anyway, ordered one and will try it out.

Active Member

Here is a cheap and easy stove to make out of an ammo can. This idea has been around for a long time.

Sorry for the long post, but I do not have a link for it, therefore I had to post the article.

Stay Safe.

How to make an Ammo can stove

step 1Packed Up

The ammo-can in its travel mode currently carries my 1 liter Billy-Can (inside the Billy-Can, I carry tea bags, sugar, fire making kit, Montreal steak spice, a can of milk) two cups, the skewers and hotdogs

step 2Construction

I started by drilled ten 1/2" diameter holes along both sides 1" above the bottom of the can and a 2" diameter hole in one end (to feed in the fuel) and ten 3/16" diameter holes along the top to put the skewers through (they would form the grill).

I use six stainless steel skewers cut to 1" longer than the width of the ammo-can and with the ten holes across the top I am able to make the grill as wide or as narrow as I need. Also they can be used as skewers to cook a shish-kabob if so desired.

step 3Getting the fire going

Because of the shape of the ammo-can (the heat is always redirected inward and up) and the small diameter of the fuel (tI usually use dead twigs and small branched, nothing bigger than the diameter of my thumb and a little birch bark to get it going) the fire burns hot, fast and clean and there is very little ash left and after the fire is finished the ammo-can cools down very quickly, so cleaning up and packing up is fast.

step 4Cooking

The ammo-can stove will boil 1 liter of water in 3 to 5 minutes depending on the type of fuel that is used,

With the ammo-can stove perched on a couple of flat rocks there is no scorching of the earth below and because the fire is contained in the steel ammo-can it works well in wet or snow covered ground conditions. DO NOT USE INDOORS!

Well-Known Member

My emergency cooking solution for at home is my propane BBQ grill. I understand loking for an alternative, but I can cook a lot, for a long time on one propane cylinder, and I keep multiples. I actually bought a couple 25gallon tanks from Craig's List for $100 total, and I can cook for months on that, with the three 5 gallon tanks I already had. I have adapter hoses for going from the 1L bottles to larger tanks on my camp stove and vice versa. These cost about $10. I also put a gauge on my propane regulator so I can tell how full or empty the tank is at a glance.

I also have a propane space heater attachment for a propane bottle.

I am planning to get another propane burner stand for brewing beer- it takes too long on the electric stove, and sometimes I just don't want to cook inside. I would convert my entire house to natural gas, but it's not even available on my street. I'm in town so large, permanent propane tanks are out. Once I move further out, I will convert as much as possible to gas heat/water/cooking. Propane or methane are easy to store for long term, and relatively efficient in terms of BTUs/$ I hope to build my own farm-scale methane digester to produce my own fuel.

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